Page 18 - ALG Issue 1 2020

artists corner
Bristow + Wilson at Plot 55b
Craigentinny Telferton Allotments, Portobello
Spread over two years, Bristow and Wilson will develop a participatory research project centred at Craigentinny Telferton Allotments that involves working with plotholders, recording their working habitat and ways of using the land to grow on, resulting in a completed artist book
of findings to be displayed locally and
at the allotments in 2020. At the end
of their residency, the artists and
Rosy Naylor plan a ‘Dinner on the Prom’ using surplus produce from the allotments to mark the end of Art Walk Porty Festival in 2020. The Art Walk Porty project is an artist-led project run by volunteers, that brings together local audiences and artists celebrating the public space and creative community
of Portobello, Edinburgh's Seaside, culminating in an annual festival based around a walk. It started as a pilot project in 2015.
Bristow and Wilson will record the weather and wildlife they see during their times working on the allotment, take tips from visitors and plotholders about working the allotments, and record the health of the soil on the
plot and growing conditions in the surrounding area (three worms seen so far!). Gardening advice will hopefully be shared throughout the year and referred to during their residency, which will also involve researching the history of the allotments and recording changes and challenges the community have overcome while in residence.
Working with another artist, Annie Lord, they have been given advice on planting apple trees, which are known to have grown historically in the area; this will be a part of the legacy of the plot, as they will continue to produce
after the residency is finished and
the plot is taken on by the community and developed as a foraging plot. Over the year, Bristow and Wilson are also organising planting days where local people could come to help dig and plant seeds and seedlings and are going
to run a workshop about saving and storing seeds for the plotholders. Lots of exciting things ahead! Bristow and Wilson will approach the plan of the plot as a bookshelf, with the planting beds and borders numbered and the progress recorded in separate books, with the tool-shed developed as a ‘book shed’ which will hold the record of their endeavours over the year.
This project couldn’t have started without the generosity and kindness
of Craigentinny Telferton Allotments plotholders, and especially the Working Group team of volunteers who have welcomed Felicity and Susie with open arms and embraced the idea of resident artists.
Felicity Bristow studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art and qualified as an Architect in 2001. In 2016 she completed a MA in Contemporary
Art Practice (also at ECA). Her studio practice now combines the two disciplines. Felicity’s site-specific work is an exploration of line, narrative, material and the pervading spirit of place.
Susie Wilson graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1992 with a BA (Hons) Degree and Postgrad in Drawing and Printmaking. Combining print, paint and collage in the book form, Susie is interested in the sense of revelation where each page hides and then reveals the next in an intimate and personal atmosphere.
Bristow and Wilson are also organising planting days where local people could come to help dig and plant seeds and seedlings
Craigentinny Telferton Allotments
were founded in 1923 and have been managed by an allotment community since then. They were originally owned by the council but were sold off to local developers in 1998. Since that time the community have successfully fought off several planning applications by those developers. There are 85 allotments on the site providing a green, wildlife-rich oasis in an otherwise built up area; quite a magical place. The allotments are a source of many community activities and over the past few years the allotments have opened the plots to the general public through the Scottish Open Gardens Scheme; for the recent opening they yarn-bombed the allotments, including creating a 12ft high knitted rainbow!
For more information about Craigentinny Telferton Allotments: https://www.ctallotments.com
Keep in touch with Felicity and Susie to see how the residency progresses here: Instagram: @plot_55b https://www.instagram.com/plot_55b/
Art Walk Projects: https://www. artwalkporty.co.uk/2019/plot55b.html
18 Allotment and Leisure Gardener